The oldest argument in any dressing room and the only one that is genuinely about football: one man thinks another is not putting enough in. It is also the row a manager privately does not mind having happened.
It was not about football and everybody who saw it knows that. Two men who have to play together on Saturday said things at Grêmio this week that will take longer than a week to unsay.
It is never announced and it is entirely visible: the biggest afternoons of the season keep containing him. A press box works this out long before anybody at the club confirms a word of it.
It is not much of a headline and it is the reason players believe the next promise. Grêmio told Miqueias something would happen and then it happened, which in this industry passes for remarkable.
Another week, another link, another denial nobody quite believes. Grêmio know the market decides these things, not the back pages — but the back pages are louder.
São Paulo next, and one man in the Grêmio dressing room knows their training ground better than his own. The reception will tell him what they thought of him.
It was not about football and everybody who saw it knows that. Two men who have to play together on Saturday said things at São Luiz this week that will take longer than a week to unsay.
Squad11 Sep 2028
Words at São Luiz training over how hard people work
Somebody said out loud what several people had been thinking. Bernardo is at the centre of it, and the squad will now find out whether the standard rises or the pair of them simply stop speaking.
Every club in football pays most of what it earns to its players. Paying nearly all of it is a different arrangement, and it has ended the same way every time somebody has tried it.
It is never announced and it is entirely visible: the biggest afternoons of the season keep containing him. A press box works this out long before anybody at the club confirms a word of it.
Every shape has positions in it and this one does not have his. São Luiz will either change the shape, change his job, or change his club, and he is waiting to hear which.
Every squad has one of these fixtures for somebody every season. This one is França’s: the club that knew him first, the supporters who will decide in the first minute whether to applaud, and São Luiz needing him to play as if none of it matters.
The chances are being made and something is happening between the making and the finishing. 3 matches now, and the anxiety in the ground arrives a little earlier every week.
Successful dribbles: 16. He went past people as if he had been told there was a prize for it, and by the end the full-back had stopped pretending to try.
“I watch every Grêmio game from here. That says everything about where my head is.” The loan at São Luiz runs its course, but his heart never made the trip.
The dugout14 Aug 2028
The manager’s verdict
“That is on me. I pick the team and I picked wrong.” Managers say that when they mean it and when they need to be seen to, and after 0‑3 Samuel Neves left the room before anybody could ask which.
The ambition story running backwards, and the one nobody tells: a footballer who wants a smaller ground, fewer cameras and a crowd that does not turn. It is not weakness and it is rarely reported as anything else.
The offer from Bahia for Dodi was heard out and sent back the same day. First bids are rarely meant to succeed; they are meant to find out how loudly the door closes.
A defender on the scoresheet, which happens rarely enough that everybody in the ground remembers who took the corner. 1 for him, and a mark of 7.65 for the rest of it.
Wagner Leonardo and a teammate said things this week that will take longer than a week to unsay. It was not about football, and both of them play on Saturday.
The oldest argument in any dressing room and the only one that is genuinely about football: one man thinks another is not putting enough in. It is also the row a manager privately does not mind having happened.
Ask anyone on the way out what separated the sides and you will get one name: Martin Braithwaite. 1‑0 against Goiás, and the applause at the whistle was mostly his.
“I watch every Grêmio game from here. That says everything about where my head is.” The loan at São Luiz runs its course, but his heart never made the trip.
Clubs make promises constantly and the page usually only hears about them when they are broken. This one was honoured, and the dressing room noticed that faster than any supporter did.
0-3, and long before the end the away end had switched from encouragement to something considerably more pointed. Nobody rings a phone-in about losing narrowly.
Terms are settled between the clubs and the rest is paperwork and a photograph. Around São Luiz they have already started talking about him in the past tense.
“I have nothing bad to say about this place. I just need to be somewhere else.” It is in writing now, which changes what São Luiz can pretend not to have heard.
“Things were said to me before I signed. I am not going to repeat them, but I remember all of them.” São Luiz have not answered, which is an answer of sorts.
The clubs had agreed and the player had not. A snub, and a public one: Athletic Club keep him, and the supporters here are left wondering what he had heard about the place.
The phone has started ringing about André Henrique again, and this time the name on the line is Avaí. Grêmio are listening politely and promising nothing.
It was not about football and everybody who saw it knows that. Two men who have to play together on Saturday said things at Grêmio this week that will take longer than a week to unsay.
Somebody said out loud what several people thought about how hard another man trains, and Miguel Monsalve was in the middle of it. The one dressing-room argument that is genuinely about football.
Grêmio asked and Palmeiras said no without discussing a figure. It is the least ambiguous answer in football and the one clubs most often come back to test.
“I watch every Grêmio game from here. That says everything about where my head is.” The loan at São Luiz runs its course, but his heart never made the trip.
It is never announced and it is entirely visible: the biggest afternoons of the season keep containing him. A press box works this out long before anybody at the club confirms a word of it.
In brief
The dugoutThe manager makes an example of João Borne
A shoot-out is remembered by its ending, and this one ends with Gabriel Grando: 2 kept out, and a set of supporters who will describe every one of them for the next twenty years.
Wagner Leonardo and a teammate said things this week that will take longer than a week to unsay. It was not about football, and both of them play on Saturday.
The chances are being made and something is happening between the making and the finishing. 4 matches now, and the anxiety in the ground arrives a little earlier every week.
10 combined actions and 7.11. The job he did is the one that shows up as other people looking good, and the only reliable way to notice it is to watch what happens on the afternoons he is missing.
Player ratings22 May 2028
Dodi was on a different afternoon to everybody else
8.04. There are performances a supporter describes to somebody who was not there and cannot quite convey; this was one, and the number does not help either.
“I watch every Grêmio game from here. That says everything about where my head is.” The loan at São Luiz runs its course, but his heart never made the trip.
The run now stands at 7, and the questions being asked around Grêmio are no longer polite ones.
Squad24 Apr 2028
Words at Grêmio training over how hard people work
Somebody said out loud what several people had been thinking. Miguel Monsalve is at the centre of it, and the squad will now find out whether the standard rises or the pair of them simply stop speaking.
A point taken on 91 minutes is worth exactly one point and considerably more than that to a dressing room. This side does not stop, which is a reputation worth more than the result.
“I watch every Grêmio game from here. That says everything about where my head is.” The loan at São Luiz runs its course, but his heart never made the trip.
Nobody at Grêmio will say this on the record and the team sheets have been saying it for weeks. There is a small group in every squad who get picked when the fixture is difficult, and he has joined it.
“A point is a point and I will take it, but we should have had all three.” Samuel Neves after the 1‑1 draw, and the sentence every manager in the country said at some stage this weekend.
It has been denied twice and printed three times, which is the usual arithmetic. Until Tetê signs something — a contract at Grêmio or anywhere else — this column belongs to him.
Brutal, unambiguous and, for all the horror of the moment, usually less career-shaped than the ligament everybody fears more. 23 days, a clean timeline, and a return date somebody can actually plan around.
Somebody said out loud what several people thought about how hard another man trains, and Miguel Monsalve was in the middle of it. The one dressing-room argument that is genuinely about football.
“I am grateful for the games, but I did not become a footballer to be somebody else's spare part.” He wants to be at Grêmio, and 0 appearances in 7 say he has earned the hearing.
It is never announced and it is entirely visible: the biggest afternoons of the season keep containing him. A press box works this out long before anybody at the club confirms a word of it.
“Judge me on him.” Managers do not say that kind of thing by accident — it moves the pressure from Miguel Monsalve’s shoulders onto his own, and both of them know it.
“I know what people will say. I know what I want, and it is here.” Avaí had the fee agreed and the shirt ready; they did not have the player, and now they will not.
A bone, which is the one injury with a calendar attached. Grêmio will name a return date and, unusually for this business, will probably be right about it.
“I have nothing bad to say about this place. I just need to be somewhere else.” It is in writing now, which changes what Grêmio can pretend not to have heard.
“I want to be playing for trophies while my legs still let me.” Nothing in that sentence is a transfer request, and nobody at Grêmio heard it as anything else.
Somebody said out loud what several people thought about how hard another man trains, and Miguel Monsalve was in the middle of it. The one dressing-room argument that is genuinely about football.
10 clean sheets from 35 appearances at Fluminense. That is the whole of a goalkeeper’s job done properly, and it is being done a long way from the club that owns him.
In brief
Transfer targetsA loan move for Pedro Ataíde is in the works
The last league game has been played and the table has stopped moving: 46 points. The summer begins on Monday, and so does the argument about what it all meant.
It happens to all of them and it is still the hardest paragraph a local paper has to write. 36 years old, 3 points down on where he was, and a body that has started charging interest on a career.
Squad29 Nov 2027
Words at Maranhão training over how hard people work
Somebody said out loud what several people had been thinking. Danillo Ribeiro is at the centre of it, and the squad will now find out whether the standard rises or the pair of them simply stop speaking.
The general version of this complaint is that a player wants more. The specific version names the thing: he wants to walk out under floodlights against clubs from other countries, and he has stopped pretending otherwise.
Juan Ignacio Nardoni and a teammate said things this week that will take longer than a week to unsay. It was not about football, and both of them play on Saturday.
Somebody said out loud what several people thought about how hard another man trains, and Miguel Monsalve was in the middle of it. The one dressing-room argument that is genuinely about football.
8 without defeat on their own grass. The pitch has not changed; the crowd has — louder earlier, and quicker to sense when the opposition would rather be somewhere else.
Every manager keeps a short list in his head of the men he wants on the pitch when the stakes rise, and it is never published. The team sheets for the big afternoons say Wagner Leonardo is on it.
9 clean sheets from 28 appearances at Maranhão. That is the whole of a goalkeeper’s job done properly, and it is being done a long way from the club that owns him.
“It is not the end of the world and it is not good enough. Both of those are true.” The manager, after a 0‑0 draw, said the honest thing and then went to say it again inside.
He is 19, he is averaging 7.36, and older professionals have started passing to him in the difficult minutes. That last part is the real scouting report.
7.90, 1 on the scoresheet, and the specific comedy of a back-four player celebrating like somebody who does this every week. He does not, and that is exactly why the ground reacted the way it did.
Somebody said out loud what several people thought about how hard another man trains, and Tássio was in the middle of it. The one dressing-room argument that is genuinely about football.
The team sheet says it in public every week until it changes. The only version of being dropped a footballer cannot argue with, and the one he takes hardest.
“Things were said to me before I signed. I am not going to repeat them, but I remember all of them.” Maranhão have not answered, which is an answer of sorts.
Every run ends on an afternoon somebody had marked down as routine. This one went 8 matches, which is long enough that a town had stopped counting, and short enough that it will remember exactly who stopped it.
It was not about football and everybody who saw it knows that. Two men who have to play together on Saturday said things at Maranhão this week that will take longer than a week to unsay.
The oldest argument in any dressing room and the only one that is genuinely about football: one man thinks another is not putting enough in. It is also the row a manager privately does not mind having happened.
There is a figure at which a wage bill stops being ambitious and becomes the reason nothing else is possible, and this club has reached it. Nothing is left over for a transfer, a stand or a rainy afternoon.
Nobody will confirm this and nothing else explains the last month of selections. A costly error buys a player a period of being second choice that is always longer than the error was.
Somebody said out loud what several people thought about how hard another man trains, and Miguel Monsalve was in the middle of it. The one dressing-room argument that is genuinely about football.
It is never announced and it is entirely visible: the biggest afternoons of the season keep containing him. A press box works this out long before anybody at the club confirms a word of it.
“Thirty minutes, door closed, everything said. We shook hands after.” Whatever was in the room stayed in the room, and Francis Amuzu trained the next morning like a man with less to carry.
8 goals in 24 games at Sousa — numbers that travel home faster than he does. Somebody at Grêmio updates a spreadsheet every Monday, and it makes better reading each week.
28 appearances at Fluminense and the goals have stopped going in. Grêmio lent out a goalkeeper and are watching somebody else’s season get better every week.
24 appearances at Maranhão and the goals have stopped going in. Grêmio lent out a goalkeeper and are watching somebody else’s season get better every week.
Erick Noriega falls out with a teammate over standards
The oldest argument in any dressing room and the only one that is genuinely about football: one man thinks another is not putting enough in. It is also the row a manager privately does not mind having happened.
It was not about football and everybody who saw it knows that. Two men who have to play together on Saturday said things at Grêmio this week that will take longer than a week to unsay.
It is never announced and it is entirely visible: the biggest afternoons of the season keep containing him. A press box works this out long before anybody at the club confirms a word of it.
23 appearances at Maranhão and the goals have stopped going in. Grêmio lent out a goalkeeper and are watching somebody else’s season get better every week.
The clubs have agreed terms, and what remains is formality: a medical, a photograph, a signature. Nobody at Grêmio is pretending he will be back in the shirt.
Somebody said out loud what several people thought about how hard another man trains, and Miguel Monsalve was in the middle of it. The one dressing-room argument that is genuinely about football.
Cruzeiro left with the points after a 0‑1 defeat that will take some explaining on the terraces.
The dugout16 Aug 2027
The manager’s verdict
“That is on me. I pick the team and I picked wrong.” Managers say that when they mean it and when they need to be seen to, and after 0‑1 Samuel Neves left the room before anybody could ask which.
The ambition story running the other way, and the one nobody tells: a footballer asking for a smaller stage, fewer cameras and a crowd that does not turn. It is not weakness and it is very rarely reported as anything else.
It was not about football and everybody who saw it knows that. Two men who have to play together on Saturday said things at Grêmio this week that will take longer than a week to unsay.
It is never announced and it is entirely visible: the biggest afternoons of the season keep containing him. A press box works this out long before anybody at the club confirms a word of it.
7 shut-outs in 21 games. A goalkeeper’s loan is judged on the afternoons when nothing happened at all, and Gabriel Grando has been having a lot of them.
Bones knit. That is the one merciful thing about this injury and the reason Maranhão will talk about it more openly than they would about a knee. He will be back, and roughly when they say.
Player ratings16 Aug 2027
Ruan Pablo, 19, plays like he has been here for years — 7.68
A mark of 7.68 means one thing beside a twenty-nine-year-old's name and something else entirely beside a 19-year-old's. Nobody at the ground needed telling which this was.
1 for Gustavo Telles, marked 7.76, and a centre-half's name in the part of the report he normally only reaches by mistake. He will not be allowed to forget it in the dressing room for a month.
Danillo Ribeiro was at the centre of it, and by the time it was pulled apart there were three or four others involved. Training grounds are small places and long seasons make them smaller.
The oldest argument in any dressing room and the only one that is genuinely about football: one man thinks another is not putting enough in. It is also the row a manager privately does not mind having happened.
There is a particular warmth a ground reserves for a 22-year-old it feels ownership of. Gustavo Telles has it now, and everything he does for the rest of his time here will be measured against the goodwill he was handed for free.
“The players deserve the credit. My job was easy today.” It was not, and everybody in the room knew it; after 2‑1, Márcio Lima could afford to be generous.
Bones knit. That is the one merciful thing about this injury and the reason Maranhão will talk about it more openly than they would about a knee. He will be back, and roughly when they say.
Some afternoons a goalkeeper is the whole of the defence. 6 saves, several of them the kind nobody expects to see made, and ten outfield players who owe him a drink.
Baldória and a teammate said things this week that will take longer than a week to unsay. It was not about football, and both of them play on Saturday.
At 34, 3 points below where he was, and a body that has started charging interest. It happens to all of them and it is still the hardest paragraph on this page.
A 3‑2 win over Independência, earned rather than given, and the sort of afternoon that sends everyone home talking about next week instead of this one.
There is a particular warmth a ground reserves for a 22-year-old it feels ownership of. Elías Berríos has it now, and everything he does for the rest of his time here will be measured against the goodwill he was handed for free.
Player ratings12 Jul 2027
Coxa was on a different afternoon to everybody else
8.07. There are performances a supporter describes to somebody who was not there and cannot quite convey; this was one, and the number does not help either.
“Things were said to me before I signed. I am not going to repeat them, but I remember all of them.” Grêmio have not answered, which is an answer of sorts.
Wagner Leonardo and a teammate said things this week that will take longer than a week to unsay. It was not about football, and both of them play on Saturday.
Vitória left with the points after a 1‑2 defeat that will take some explaining on the terraces.
Squad31 May 2027
Words at Grêmio training over how hard people work
Somebody said out loud what several people had been thinking. Jovane Cabral is at the centre of it, and the squad will now find out whether the standard rises or the pair of them simply stop speaking.
Clubs make promises constantly and the page usually only hears about them when they are broken. This one was honoured, and the dressing room noticed that faster than any supporter did.
“I watch every Grêmio game from here. That says everything about where my head is.” The loan at Maranhão runs its course, but his heart never made the trip.
“We were not good enough today and I am not going to dress it up.” Samuel Neves after 1‑2, in the tone of a man who knows the next question and does not intend to answer it.
The match ball belongs to Coxa, whose 4 goals turned a difficult afternoon into a procession.
Player ratings31 May 2027
Fabricio Díaz, 21, plays like he has been here for years — 9.47
A mark of 9.47 means one thing beside a twenty-nine-year-old's name and something else entirely beside a 21-year-old's. Nobody at the ground needed telling which this was.
It was not about football and everybody who saw it knows that. Two men who have to play together on Saturday said things at Maranhão this week that will take longer than a week to unsay.
9 goals. Both benches spent the second half looking at each other rather than at the pitch. Purists will complain about Maranhão and Manauara in equal measure; everybody else had a wonderful time.
Player ratings31 May 2027
Coxa was on a different afternoon to everybody else
9.61. There are performances a supporter describes to somebody who was not there and cannot quite convey; this was one, and the number does not help either.
Somebody said out loud what several people thought about how hard another man trains, and Danillo Ribeiro was in the middle of it. The one dressing-room argument that is genuinely about football.
At 22 he is being sung about by people twice his age, which is an affection a signing has to earn over years and a local kid gets for turning up. It is also the hardest thing in football to live up to.
It has stopped being a mood in the stands and started being something organised. Boards can ignore a bad atmosphere for a long time; they cannot ignore this stage of it for very long at all.
Baldória was at the centre of it, and by the time it was pulled apart there were three or four others involved. Training grounds are small places and long seasons make them smaller.
Squad24 May 2027
Words at Maranhão training over how hard people work
Somebody said out loud what several people had been thinking. Danillo Ribeiro is at the centre of it, and the squad will now find out whether the standard rises or the pair of them simply stop speaking.
He is 22 and the ground already sings his name, which is a thing that happens to local boys and almost never to signings. Everything from here is measured against an affection he did nothing to earn except be from here.
The run now stands at 5, and the questions being asked around Grêmio are no longer polite ones.
Squad3 May 2027
Words at Grêmio training over how hard people work
Somebody said out loud what several people had been thinking. Juan Ignacio Nardoni is at the centre of it, and the squad will now find out whether the standard rises or the pair of them simply stop speaking.
Cristian Olivera was at the centre of it, and by the time it was pulled apart there were three or four others involved. Training grounds are small places and long seasons make them smaller.
Behind, and beaten by any honest reading, until minute 85. Fluminense had the points in their pocket and a corner of the ground still believed, which is generally when it happens.
The oldest argument in any dressing room and the only one that is genuinely about football: one man thinks another is not putting enough in. It is also the row a manager privately does not mind having happened.
Every manager keeps a short list in his head of the men he wants on the pitch when the stakes rise, and it is never published. The team sheets for the big afternoons say Weverton is on it.
5 clean sheets from 6 appearances at Anápolis. That is the whole of a goalkeeper’s job done properly, and it is being done a long way from the club that owns him.
32 points from position 5. The title is somebody else’s business and the drop is somebody else’s problem; what is left is the argument about passports.
“I will know when it is time. I am not there yet.” Walter Kannemann is 36, with 289 appearances behind him, and Grêmio will have to plan for whichever answer comes.
Wagner Leonardo was at the centre of it, and by the time it was pulled apart there were three or four others involved. Training grounds are small places and long seasons make them smaller.
Somebody said out loud what several people thought about how hard another man trains, and Jovane Cabral was in the middle of it. The one dressing-room argument that is genuinely about football.
“I watch every Grêmio game from here. That says everything about where my head is.” The loan at Maranhão runs its course, but his heart never made the trip.
It is never announced and it is entirely visible: the biggest afternoons of the season keep containing him. A press box works this out long before anybody at the club confirms a word of it.
“Thirty minutes, door closed, everything said. We shook hands after.” Whatever was in the room stayed in the room, and Jovane Cabral trained the next morning like a man with less to carry.
A year in and the language has not come, the city has not opened up, and he eats alone more often than anybody at Grêmio would like to admit. It is showing on Saturdays.
In brief
Loan watchYgor’s loan is measured in nothing happening
Fee agreed, wages agreed, and Operário-MS waiting with a shirt. Nobody at Grêmio is pretending otherwise, and the supporters have stopped asking whether and started asking when.
“I have ambitions, and I would like the club to share them.” Nobody has asked to leave and nobody has been shown the door — but a player chooses that sentence carefully, and a boardroom hears it exactly as it was meant.
Somebody said out loud what several people thought about how hard another man trains, and Juan Ignacio Nardoni was in the middle of it. The one dressing-room argument that is genuinely about football.
Adrielson was at the centre of it, and by the time it was pulled apart there were three or four others involved. Training grounds are small places and long seasons make them smaller.
Nobody at Grêmio will say this on the record and the team sheets have been saying it for weeks. There is a small group in every squad who get picked when the fixture is difficult, and he has joined it.
The deal with Fluminense is done in every sense but the one that puts him on the pitch. Nothing goes wrong at this stage, except on the occasions when it does.
The clubs had agreed and the player had not. A snub, and a public one: Avaí keep him, and the supporters here are left wondering what he had heard about the place.
Everybody at Maranhão saw it before anybody said it, which is how this always goes. At 36 the decline is real and measurable — 3 points — and the only question left is how the club handles somebody it owes a great deal to.
Squad11 Jan 2027
Words at Maranhão training over how hard people work
Somebody said out loud what several people had been thinking. Gustavo Telles is at the centre of it, and the squad will now find out whether the standard rises or the pair of them simply stop speaking.
The academy exists for exactly this morning. Ze has come through every age group the club runs and has now been handed a senior number, and the people who coached him at twelve will be the proudest in the building.
There is no fee, no unveiling and no agent on the steps. Marcos Nogueira has been at this club since he was a boy and is now, formally, one of the first-team squad — which for a local readership beats any signing of any size.
He is doing things every Saturday that nobody around him can answer. It is flattering for a season and a problem after that, and Maranhão know which stage they are at.
“It had gone on long enough. I would rather have it out than leave it sitting there.” Ten minutes behind a closed door at Maranhão, and both men came out saying it was fine.
The offer went to Fluminense this week and it is theirs to answer. First bids are rarely meant to succeed; they are meant to find out how loud the door closes.
It happens to all of them and it is still the hardest paragraph a local paper has to write. 33 years old, 3 points down on where he was, and a body that has started charging interest on a career.
Somebody said out loud what several people thought about how hard another man trains, and Baldória was in the middle of it. The one dressing-room argument that is genuinely about football.
He is doing things every Saturday that nobody around him can answer. It is flattering for a season and a problem after that, and Maranhão know which stage they are at.
The last thing about a transfer that is still about the player is his signature on his own terms, and it is there. Grêmio have lost him in all but the paperwork.
“I have nothing bad to say about this place. I just need to be somewhere else.” It is in writing now, which changes what Grêmio can pretend not to have heard.
The offer from São Paulo for Tiago was heard out and sent back the same day. First bids are rarely meant to succeed; they are meant to find out how loudly the door closes.
Mathías Villasanti was at the centre of it, and by the time it was pulled apart there were three or four others involved. Training grounds are small places and long seasons make them smaller.
Squad28 Dec 2026
Words at Grêmio training over how hard people work
Somebody said out loud what several people had been thinking. Juan Ignacio Nardoni is at the centre of it, and the squad will now find out whether the standard rises or the pair of them simply stop speaking.
Another week, another link, another denial nobody quite believes. Grêmio know the market decides these things, not the back pages — but the back pages are louder.
It is never announced and it is entirely visible: the biggest afternoons of the season keep containing him. A press box works this out long before anybody at the club confirms a word of it.
In brief
The dugoutThe manager makes Marcos Rocha a promise
Danillo Ribeiro was at the centre of it, and by the time it was pulled apart there were three or four others involved. Training grounds are small places and long seasons make them smaller.
Somebody said out loud what several people thought about how hard another man trains, and Tsumita was in the middle of it. The one dressing-room argument that is genuinely about football.
Another week, another link, another denial nobody quite believes. Maranhão know the market decides these things, not the back pages — but the back pages are louder.
He is doing things on a Saturday afternoon that nobody around him can answer, which is flattering for about one season and a problem after that. Maranhão will not keep him by pretending otherwise.
A season-long audition: Goiás still own him, but the shirt and the minutes are Maranhão's to give. A loan is a bet both clubs believe they are winning.